Automatic query and transformative process

ABSTRACT

A computer-implemented method of retrieving information in a first markup language through a query engine and presenting the information in any required markup language. A user inputs a query and may invoke a number of transformative sequences. These sequences contain a markup language pattern and an action, which may include transforming the tags in the first markup language to tags in a different markup language. The appropriate transformative sequence is selected and the pattern from the transformative sequence is compiled. The compiled pattern is used to perform rapid and efficient searches of documents in the database. A predicate check using the binary coding of the node as well as ancestor information confirms the node. The leaf information associated with a confirmed node is then stored. If necessary, the action from the transformative sequence is applied to change the markup language of the leaf information to that of the user.

This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 09/134,263,filed on Aug. 14, 1998, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,332.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This patent application is related, in general, to information retrievaland in particular to a query and transformative engine applicable toeXtensible Markup Language (XML) documentation.

BACKGROUND

As society becomes increasingly more computerized and as greater accessis allowed to information stored on computers, it has becomeincreasingly more important to find such information in as efficient amanner as possible.

For example, the development of computerized information resources, suchas the Internet, and various on-line services, such as Compuserve,America Online, Prodigy, and other services, has led to a proliferationof electronically available information. In fact, this electronicinformation is increasingly displacing more conventional means ofinformation transmission, such as newspapers, magazines, and even,television. The World Wide Web consists of a number of Web sites locatedon numerous servers, most of which are accessible through globalcomputer networks. The primary issue in all of these resources isfiltering the vast amount of information available in order that a userobtain that information of interest to him and receiving suchinformation in an acceptable format. To assist in searching informationavailable on the Internet, a number of search techniques have beendevised to find information requested by the user.

These search techniques are based upon a node by node search. When thenode does not contain “speech” (defined as viewable material for thereader), the search will navigate to the first child of the node andkeep on navigating down each node string until speech is found. By beingforced into examining each node separately, such searches are time andresource consuming.

In addition, none of these search techniques incorporate atransformative sequence for adjusting the information to therequirements of the user.

There is a need in the art to develop a query system that is easy to useand intuitive. There is an additional need to combine such a queryengine with a transformative sequence to allow documents to be presentedto users in the format they require.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A computer-implemented method of retrieving information in a firstmarkup language through a query engine and presenting the information inany required markup language is shown. A user inputs a query to achieveone of two possible outputs: In the first usage, a query stands aloneand the output of the engine is the information matching the query. Inthe second usage, transformative sequences are combined with queries.These sequences contain a markup language pattern and an action; theaction may include transforming the tags in the first markup language totags in a different markup language. The output of the engine in thissecond case is information matching the queries and transformed by thesequences specified. In either usage, the query is compiled from itssource format into a sequence of instructions for the query engine. Thecompiled query is assigned tags and attributes. The database is thensearched node by node for the corresponding tags and attributes. Apredicate check using the binary coding of the node as well as ancestorand descendant information confirms the node. The leaf informationassociated with a confirmed node is then stored. If necessary, theaction from the transformative sequence is applied to change the markuplanguage of the leaf information to that of the user.

A primary object of the invention is to provide a query engine capableof making partial searches and conducting predicate checks on suchsearches.

Yet another object of the present invention is to provide an abstractengine with both query and transformative capabilities to access adocument and transform it to a requisite format.

It is still another object of the invention to provide a query enginethat can produce more than one result on demand.

It is another object of the invention for the query engine to bestate-preserving so that the engine can reactivate a prior search.

An object of the invention is to execute XML tag-level search andretrieval.

Furthermore, another object of the invention is to provide an enginethat can both process a query and validate the results efficiently.

A further object of the invention is for the transformative engine topresent the XML scripted document in HyperText Markup Language (HTML),Handheld Devices Markup Language (HDML), and other presentation formats.

Another object of the invention is to access XML tag-level scripting andperform eXtensible Style Language (XSL) ready transformation on suchscripting.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

For a more complete understanding of the present invention and theadvantages thereof, reference should be made to the following DetailedDescription taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1A is a diagram illustrating the prior art implementation ofconducting searches;

FIG. 1B is a diagram illustrating the implementation of conducting asearch using an abstract engine;

FIG. 1 is a relationship diagram showing the Query Engine components;

FIG. 2 is a detailed flowchart of the Query Engine;

FIG. 3 is a relationship diagram showing the Query Engine incorporatedinto a Transformation Processing Engine;

FIG. 4 is an illustration a document tree with binary codingassignments;

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a computer network;

FIG. 6 is an example page of a Web site;

FIG. 7 is a process for searching and displaying a Web document; and

FIG. 8 is an example program of an XSL transformation.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the context of an electronic environment, a document is stored usinga markup language. A markup language defines the descriptions of thestructure and content of different types of electronic documents. Thereis a need to be able to search such electronic documents to obtainedneeded information. In the prior art, as shown in FIG. 1A, a singlequery engine would not be able to handle query requests in a number ofdiffering languages. It would take a number of query engines 1 a, 1 b, 1c, and 1 d receiving similar search requests, in a number of differinglanguages, 5 a, 5 b, 5 c and 5 d, to compile and generate a number ofdiffering searches, 10 a, 10 b, 10 c, and 10 d, in order to obtain asearch result 15. In an embodiment shown in FIG. 1B, compiler 20 mayreceive a number of similar search requests in a number of differinglanguages, 5 a, 5 b, 5 c, and 5 d. The compiler 20 compile the searchrequest 20 from any of the languages into the abstract engine language25 and then have the abstract engine 30 run the search to obtain searchresult 15. The advantage is that the abstract engine can support anynumber of query languages. The prior art cannot support a number ofquery languages and would have to implement separate search engines forthe separate languages. This provides the user of the abstract enginewith a memory advantage. The abstract engine can be used in a network inan electronic environment or on a stand-alone console.

FIG. 1 is a relationship diagram 100 showing the primary elements of thesearch engine of the present patent application. A user generates a userquery 110 in language L₁. The query is then compiled in a query compiler120 for language in language L₁. The Query Engine Abstract Machine 140takes as input the following: Query Engine Instructions 130 and aDocument Parse Tree 150 representation of a document. The query engineinstructions tell the query engine what parts of the document parse treeto select and return as Query Results 160. In addition to Query Results160, the other output of the query engine is the Continuation State 170.In cases where multiple query results would be produced by the queryengine by following the query engine instructions, the query engine onlyproduces the first result and outputs the intermediate engine state asthe Continuation State 170. At a later time, the Continuation State maybe supplied back to the engine to cause it to resume operation at thesaved state and produce the next result.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart 200 showing the query engine in more detail. Theprocess can start with a new query, or with the Continuation State of aprevious query. There are two different paths 210 for these two cases.If this is a new query, the user inputs a Query 211 in one of the QueryLanguages understood by the engine. A typical query might look like:

<title>under<chapter>under<play name=“hamlet”>

Such a typical query would, for example, be addressed at an electronicdatabase containing the works of a number of authors. The objective ofthe query is to find all the chapter title headings for any playsentitled “Hamlet.”

As noted earlier, the engine can support any number of query languages,because the processing steps are the same for all languages, thisdescription uses “L” as a generic variable indicating any query languageunderstood by the engine.

The engine compiles the query language into query engine instructions220. In the next step 221, specific tag names and attributes areattached to the instructions as required to correctly describe thequery. In the example query shown above, the tags are <title>, <chapter>and <play>, “name” is an attribute name, and “hamlet” is an attributevalue. An initialized query engine internal state is then created atstep 222.

If instead of being a new query this is a resumption of a previously runquery, the query is resumed using the Continuation State 212 from thepreviously processed query. The appropriate query engine internal stateis then reactivated 230.

In either the new or resumed query case, the engine now determines 240if the user desires to search documents in a relational database, or inmemory.

When searching a relational database, the engine performs a coarsesearch 250 of the database, executing query engine instructions andlooking for matches based on the tags/attributes/values assigned to theinstructions in step 221. This produces a candidate list of possiblematches for the query. In this search, the engine does not search theentire database, but rather stops once it has accumulated a partial setof results. This method is more efficient because it allows the queryengine to use less memory when searching. For illustrative purposes,FIG. 4 shows an example of a document tree as 400. The <title> of theplay 401 is “Hamlet” 407, and the <author> 403 is “Shakespeare” 408. One<chapter> 404 has a <title> 409 of “Prologue” 412. The <stage setting>410 includes a “(Castle in Denmark)” 413. The chapter <404> also has<speech> 411. The <speaker > 414 includes “Rosencrantz” 417, the“costume” 415 includes “(Dressed in Armor)”418, and the <text> 416includes “My Dear Guildenstern” 419.

As the search engine travels from node to node of the document tree, thesearch engine determines whether the contents of the node may partiallyfulfill the search requirement based on the coarse search criteria 251.This is determined based only on the tags and attributes in theinstructions obtained during the compilation 221. In this particularexample, the tag is <title>. For example, in FIG. 4, there are multipleinstances of <title> 402 and 409. During the coarse search the searchengine may find any of these <title> nodes based on a tag match.However, <title> node 402 will be checked (as explained later) anddiscarded because it is not a <title> under a <chapter> under a <play>;instead, it is a <title> directly under a <play> 401. The search enginewill continue its search until it encounters node 409, which satisfiesall the tag and attribute criteria and additionally satisfies thepredicate checks, as will be described later. The text information tonode 409 is “Prologue” which is the leaf information 412.

If no candidates at all are found 251, the engine is finished 298 and nomore results are returned. Otherwise, the candidate list is furtherrefined using predicate checks 252, details of which will be describedlater. If the refinement finds no matching candidates 253, then theengine returns to the database and searches for additional candidates250.

If the refinement finds a match 253, the engine is ready to generate itstwo outputs: the Query Results 271 and the Continuation State 270. Asnoted earlier, the Continuation State describes the current state of theengine, so that a later invocation may resume the search at the pointwhere the current operation left off. For example, in FIG. 4, the searchengine can return the correct <title> node 409 as well as any additional<title> nodes found under the Chapter nodes 405 and 406 (which are notfully elaborated in the FIGURE). The first result will be presentedfirst, and the user indicates when to resume processing 280, at whichtime the entire process begins again at step 230, with the ContinuationState supplied as input 212. Otherwise, the process reaches an end 299.

Returning to step 240, the other method of searching is for documentsthat are not stored in a relational database and instead are containedcompletely in memory. These documents can be searched much moreefficiently than database documents, and so the query engine uses adifferent path. A simplified search for the proper query results isperformed 260 on the document directly in memory. As with the databasecase, only the first results are used. If no results are found 265, thequery engine is finished. Otherwise, the engine proceeds directly tocreate the Continuation State 270 and the query results 271.

The benefits of the tag, attribute, and attribute value checkingmechanism is that it provides a less memory intensive manner ofconducting a query since the search is merely looking for simple wordassociations as opposed to placement of the node in relation to othernodes. This partial checking mechanism 250 allows a much more efficientimplementation when searching documents stored in a relational databaseor in any non-memory resident form, which is important for largedocuments. To complete the search query, however, the engine must refinethe coarse results to eliminate incorrect matches such as the case of a<title> 402 directly under a <play> 401. This requires a descendantpredicate check. Typically, such a check on a number of documents and alarge number of nodes would consume a great deal of time and resources,especially in an electronic environment. It therefore becomes preferableto devise a constant time method to determine if an element is adescendant of another. The preferred embodiment is a unique binaryencoding mechanism and corresponding descendant predicate algorithm toperform such a predicate check operation. In order to determine whethernode A is a descendant of node B, this operation will require threepieces of information (1) the identification of the immediate parent,(2) the absolute depth of the node, and (3) binary encoding.

To explain the preferred embodiment of the binary coding mechanism usedby the query engine, the following terms must be defined: newcode(),subtree depth, and absolute depth.

C=newcode(Cp) creates a new binary code, C, from the code, Cp, of theparent, P. The new code must have the property that for any two nodes, Aand B, with codes Ca=code of node A and Cb=code of node B, the followingrelationship

(Ca & Cb)=Cb

where “==” indicates equality, and “&” indicates bitwise binary AND istrue IF AND ONLY IF node A is a descendant of B, “descendant” beingmeant in the most general sense, not limited only to immediatedescendants.

The subtree depth of a tag node is defined as follows:

the subtree depth of a leaf tag, meaning a tag node with no descendants(only its own value node), is zero.

the subtree depth of a node, P, with immediate descendants D1, D2, . . .is equal to the maximum subtree depth of any descendant, plus 1.

FIG. 4 illustrates the assignment of subtree depths notated as “sd=” inthe Figure. Note that subtree depths are only assigned to tags, not totheir values.

The absolute depth of a node is defined as follows:

the absolute depth of the root of the tree is zero.

the absolute depth of any node, D, with parent P, is equal to theabsolute depth of the parent node, plus 1.

Given these definitions, the method used by the query engine forassigning codes to a tree is as follows:

1) Assign code zero to the root node.

2) Start with the children of the root node, descend the tree indepth-first, left-to-right order.

3) For each node visited, N, with parent P and parent's code Cp:

3a) If the subtree depth of N is greater than 2 then assign a new code,Cn=newcode(Cp) to this node N.

3b) If the subtree depth of N equals 2 then assign a new code,Cn=newcode(Cp) to this node N, and all descendants of N, recursively.

3c) If the subtree depth of N is less than 2 and this is the firstsubtree of depth less than 2 encountered under parent P, then assign anew code Cpshared=newcode(Cp) to serve as a “shared code” for thisparent. Then assign Cpshared as the code for N, and all descendants ofN.

3d) If the subtree depth of N is less than 2 and this is not the firstsubtree of depth less than 2 encountered under parent P, then a code,Cpshared, for parent P already exists. Assign Cpshared as the code forN, and all descendants of N.

This method results in codes being assigned such that:

All nodes in any single subtree of subtree depth 2 or less share asingle common code generated as a new code based on the parent's code.This is illustrated as the circled nodes 430 in FIG. 4.

Furthermore, in a collection of related subtrees of depth 1 or 0, beingrelated by having a common parent, all nodes in those subtrees share asingle common code generated as a new code based on the common parent'scode. This is illustrated as the circled nodes 440 in FIG. 4.

Using these encoding procedures allows the element encodings to bepresented as packets of information nearly a factor of 100 times smallerthan prior techniques since each node will not require separate binarynumbers, thereby improving speed and performance during the searches.

FIG. 3 is a relationship diagram 300 showing the query engineincorporated into a transformative sequence processor. The user willsupply a transformative sequence 310 in the form of an XSLspecification. XSL is a standard in development by the World Wide WebConsortium (W3C). FIG. 8 is an example of an XSL transformationspecification. First, the XSL tag is defined 800. Within the XSL tag, arule tag is defined 810. The rule tag is composed of two elements, aPattern 820 and an Action 830. The Pattern defines a set of items atwhich the transformative function implements the Action. In FIG. 8, thePattern is defined as a title tag 840 when it occurs under a chapter tag850, which itself occurs a book tag 860, should be transformed into an<H4> tag 870, when a document (or subdocument) containing it isrendered.

Note that XSL specifications may contain multiple rules, patterns, andactions; in this simple example only one rule with one pattern and oneaction is shown.

Referring back to FIG. 3, the XSL specification 310 is compiled by QueryCompiler 320 into Query Engine Instructions 330. During compilation,only the pattern of the XSL rule is compiled. In FIG. 8, the pattern iscompiled with the <title> tag 840 becomes a tag value in the queryengine instruction as previously described for step 221 in FIG. 2.

The Action 830 of the XSL transformation rule is not compiled duringthis sequence, and instead is supplied directly 335 to thetransformative engine 380, along with the compiled query engineinstructions 330. A document parse tree 350 is also input into thetransformative engine 380.

The transformative engine includes a Query Engine Abstract Machine 340and a Rendering Algorithm 345. The query engine abstract machine 340incrementally produces query results 360 that are input into therendering algorithm 345. The Continuation State 370 produced by thequery engine abstract machine is also held within the transformativeengine.

The transformative engine uses the query engine to determine which nodesmatch the patterns in the XSL specification. As incremental results aresupplied by the query engine, the transformation engine applies theappropriate matching transformation actions (830) to the query engineresults. Transformed document 390 is output from the transformativeengine 380.

WORLD WIDE WEB EXAMPLE

An example of the preferred embodiment of the query and transformationsequence can be viewed in the context of the World Wide Web and thevarious markup languages that are associated with the Web although otherembodiments address non-networked computer databases. A ‘web browser’ istraditionally defined as a computer program which supports thedisplaying of documents, presently most of which include HypertextMarkup Language (HTML) formatting markup tags (discussed further below),and hyperlinking to other documents, or phrases in documents, across anetwork. In particular, web browsers are used to access documents acrossthe Internet's World Wide Web. The discussion of the present inventiondefines both ‘web browser’ and ‘browser’ to include browser programsthat enable accessing hyperlinked information over the Internet andother networks, as well as from magnetic disk, compact disk, read-onlymemory (CD-ROM), or other memory, and does not limit web browsers tojust use over the Internet. A number of web browsers are available, someof them commercially. Any viewer of the World Wide Web will typicallyuse a web browser. Indeed, a viewer viewing documents created by thepresent invention normally uses a web browser to access the documentsthat a database provider may make available on the network. Web browsersallow clicking on “hot areas” (generated by source anchors containing adocument reference name and a hyperlink to that document so thatclicking on the hot area causes the specified document to be downloadedover the network and displayed for the viewer). Most web browsers alsomaintain a history of previously used source anchors and display a hotarea which allows hyperlinking back to the database provider's home page(or back through the locations the viewer has previously “visited”) sothe viewer can always go back to a familiar place.

A viewer and a server, which is where web documents are contained,communicate using the functionality provided by Hypertext TransferProtocol (HTTP). The Web includes all the servers adhering to thisstandard which are accessible to clients via Uniform Resource Locators(URL's). For example, communication can be provided over a communicationmedium. In some embodiments, the client and server may be coupled viaSerial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) or Transmission ControlProtocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connections for high-capacitycommunication. The web browser is active within the client and presentsinformation to the user.

One way of organizing information on the Internet in order to minimizedownload time has been to provide users with an overview interface,called a ‘home page,’ to the information. Although a home page is oftenmerely used as a visually interesting trademark, the home page typicallycontains a key topic summary of the information provided by one authoror database provider, and hyperlinks that take a viewer to theinformation the viewer has chosen.

A ‘hyperlink’ is defined as a point-and-click mechanism implemented on acomputer which allows a viewer to link (or jump) from one screen displaywhere a topic is referred to (called the ‘hyperlink source’), to otherscreen displays where more information about that topic exists (calledthe ‘hyperlink destination’). These hyperlinked screen displays can beportions of the media data (media data can include, e.g., text graphics,audio, video, etc.) from a single data file, or can be portions of aplurality of different data files; these can be stored in a singlelocation, or at a plurality of separate locations. A hyperlink thusprovides a computer-assisted way for a human user to efficiently jumpbetween various locations containing information.

Finally, to support the Internet and the World Wide Web, a markuplanguage called HTML was developed. HTML has two major objectives.First, HTML provides a way to specify the structural elements of text(e.g., this is a heading, this is a body of text, this is a list, etc.)using tags which are independent of the content of the text. A webbrowser uses these tags to format the displayed text for the particulardisplay device of a particular viewer. So, for example, HTML allows anauthor to specify up to six levels of heading information bracketed bysix different heading-tag pairs. Applications (e.g., web browsers) ondifferent computers then process the HTML documents for visualpresentation in a manner customized for particular display devices. Anapplication on one computer could display a level 1 heading as 10 pointbold Courier while an application on another computer could display itas a 20 point italic Times Roman. A level 1 sequence is heralded withthe sequence token </h1>. Thus, a heading might be displayed as:

<h1> This is a level 1 heading </h1>

for a level one heading or

<h4> this is a level 4 heading </h4>

for a level 4 heading. As a markup language, HTML enables a document tobe displayed within the capabilities of any particular display systemeven though that display system does not support italic, or bold, color,or any particular typeface or size. Thus HTML supports writing documentsso they can be output to everything from simple monospaced, single-sizefonts to proportional-spaced, multiple-size, multiple-style fonts. Eachcomputer program that accesses an HTML document can translate that HTMLdocument into a display format supported by the hardware running theprogram.

On the World Wide Web, the documents being generated are typically donein HTML. HTML defines hypertext structure within basic limits. It allowsa programmer to define a link but it does not allow for differentiationbetween links or sublinks. An HTML document cannot be parsed into amulti-stage tree. In addition, differing tags cannot be defined in HTML,which reduces its flexibility.

These limitations to HTML are presently being addressed. One of theoptions is the Standard Generalized Markup Language (“SGML”). HTML canactually be viewed as a subset of SGML. SGML defines a language for usein presenting any form of information. However, SGML presents so manyoptions for defining tags and presenting information that it is verydifficult to use in standardizing a way for defining and presentingdocuments and their contents.

The difficulties in using SGML have led to the development of a hybrid,which would contain the advantages of SGML and HTML. This new languagefor establishing documents on the World Wide Web is the “ExtensibleMarkup Language” (known as “XML”), which is termed extensible because itis not a fixed format like HTML. XML is designed to allow the use ofSGML on the World Wide Web but with some limitations on the options thatSGML provides. Basically, XML allows a programmer to devise his or herown set of markup elements. XML documents can be accessed throughdocument type definition (DTD) or DTD-less operations. DTD is usually afile, which contains a formal definition of a particular type ofdocument. This sets out what names can be used for elements, where theymay occur and how they all fit together. Basically DTD is a formallanguage that allows the processors to parse a document and define theinterrelations of the elements within an XML document. However, an XMLdocument has additional flexibility since it can define its own markupelements by the existence and location of elements where created therebyallowing DTD-less reading. Pure SGML documents typically would require aDTD file to assist in the translation.

Even for XML documents, the reader must have the ability to efficientlyfind and retrieve more information about any particular item in adocument. Presently, the query engines that exist for XML arecomparatively slow. As noted earlier, these search engines rely on anode by node search (“node travel”) of an XML document that consists ofexamining the nodes. If the node has a leaf with the requestedinformation, the engine will access the information. If the node doesnot have the information, the search will then move down to the nodechild and perform the same analysis. This type of search istime-consuming. In addition, these search engines do not have thecapability to accept directions from non-XML compatible web browsers orpresent the information in a format compatible to such a web browser.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a system, indicated generally at 500,according to the illustrative embodiment. System 500 includes a TCP/IPnetwork 510, a real media server computer 512 for executing a real mediaserver process and a web server computer 516 for executing a Web serverprocess. Web server 516 contains multiple web site 518 a-n, as shown inFIG. 5.

Moreover, as shown in FIG. 5, each of servers 512, 514 and 516 iscoupled through TCP/IP network 510 to each of clients 502, 504, 506 and508. Through TCP/IP network 510, information is communicated by servers512, 514 and 516, and by clients 502, 504, 506 and 508 to one another.

Clients 502, 504, 506 and 508 are substantially identical to oneanother. Client 502 is a representative one of clients 502, 504, 506 and508. Client 502 includes a user 520, input devices 522, media devices524, speakers 526, a display device 528, a print device 530 and a clientcomputer 532. Client computer 532 is connected to input devices 522,media devices 524, speakers 526, display device 528, print device 530and diskette 534. Display device 528 is, for example, a conventionalelectronic cathode ray tube. Print device 530 is, for example, aconventional electronic printer or plotter.

User 520 and client computer 532 operate in association with oneanother. For example, in response to signals from client computer 530,display device 528 displays visual images, and user 520 views suchvisual images. Also, in response to signals from client computer 532,print device 530 prints visual images on paper, and user 520 views suchvisual images. Further, in response to signals from client computer 532,speakers 526 output audio frequencies, and user 520 listens to suchaudio frequencies. Moreover, user 520 operates input devices 522 andmedia devices 524 in order to output information to client computer 532,and client computer 532 receives such information from input devices 522and media devices 524.

Input devices 522 include, for example, a conventional electronickeyboard and a pointing device such as a conventional electronic mouse,rollerball or light pen. User 520 operates the keyboard to outputalphanumeric text information to client computer 532, and clientcomputer 532 receives such alphanumeric text information from thekeyboard. User 520 operates the pointing device to output cursor-controlinformation to client computer 532, and client computer 532 receivessuch cursor-control information from the pointing device.

User 520 operates media devices 524 in order to output information toclient computer 532 in the form of media signals, and client computer532 receives such media signals from media devices 524. Media signalsinclude for example video signals and audio signals. Media devices 524include, for example, a microphone, a video camera, a videocassetteplayer, a CD-ROM player, and an electronic scanner device.

A web browser typically is loaded onto a client computer and is launchedby the client computer when accessing the World Wide Web. The webbrowser is used for accessing Web sites 518 (a-n) through the web server516.

The advantages of a web browser on a network such as the Internet isthat any of the documents viewed with the program may be located (orscattered in pieces) on any computer connected to network 510. Theviewer can use a mouse 522, or other pointing device, to click-on a hotarea, such as highlighted text or a button, and cause the relevantportion of the referenced document to be downloaded to the viewer'scomputer 532 for viewing. These downloaded documents in turn can containhyperlinks to other documents on the same or other computers.‘Downloading’ is defined as the transmitting of a document or otherinformation from the an array of web sites 518 a through 518 n over anetwork 510 to the viewer's computer 532.

As noted earlier, information is presented to World Wide Web viewers asa collection of ‘documents’ and ‘pages’. As mentioned above, a‘document’ is defined in a broad sense to indicate text, pictorial,audio, video and other information stored in one or more computer files.Viewing such multimedia files can be much like watching television.Documents include everything from simple short text documents to largecomputer multi-media databases.

A ‘page’ is defined as any discrete file, which can be downloaded as asingle download segment. Technically, a web browser does not recognizeor access documents per se, but instead accesses pages. Typically, a webbrowser downloads one page as the result of clicking on a hot area. Apage often has several source anchors with hyperlinks to various otherpages or to specific locations within pages.

One problem with accessing documents over the Internet is that manydocuments are quite long, and thus can take quite some time to downloadover the network. This means that viewers are often reluctant to accessa document unless they know it will be useful. FIG. 6 shows the typicalinformation available at a web site. A web site 600 might contain anumber of internal lines 610 and/or sections with multiple pages. Thepresentation of text and or graphics 620 on a web site 600 is defined bya markup language. A page is thus a document, which contains a portionof a source document.

FIG. 7 shows a process for displaying/searching a web document using aweb browser. A session typically commences when the HTTP server detectsa request for a client connect. After connection, a simple query can beimplemented through the web browser. In the prior art, such a querywould usually just include a term to be found in the Web document. Then,the requested page, typically the home page, is displayed on the clientbrowser. As noted above, the client and server may be coupled via aTCP/IP connection. Active within the client 532 is the web browser 710,which establishes the connection with the web server 516. The web server516 executes the corresponding server software which presentsinformation to the client in the form of HTTP responses 720. The HTTPresponses correspond to Web pages represented using markup language. Inthis embodiment, the markup language is XML. The web browser willactivate the search engine 730 on the web server.

The XML versions of articles are searched for the presence of specifiedsearch terms, if the web browser is compatible. If the web browser isnot compatible, the XML results are converted to a compatible format.The XML results of these search requests can then be displayed on theclient's console.

The transformative process on a server is called a server-sidetransformation. If the browser is XML/XSL-enabled MS IE4 is an example,then server-side transformations need not be implemented on the serversince the browser has XML/XSL capabilities. If the browser is notXML/XSL-enabled, and there are commands that can be provided totransform information, then server-side transformation is implemented.As a matter of fact, there may be multiple transformation (XSL)specifications for a variety of formats on each server. The server willenable the appropriate XSL specification given the available browserinformation; i.e., if the browser is not XML-enabled but is CSS(cascading style sheets)-enabled, the server-side transformations usingthe “CSS” XSL specification will be implemented, and if the browser isnot even CSS-enabled then a “raw HTML” XSL specification can be used,and so forth.

These capabilities are very “back end” oriented, in the sense that theyconstitute implementation details of commands on the server, as opposedto having graphical manifestation on the GUI of the client computer. Thefollowing is an example of the transformation and query process usingthe following XML document:

<MYDOC>

<SEC>

Section 1 content . . .

<PAR>

Paragraph 1 content . . .

</PAR>

<PAR>

Paragraph 2 content . . .

</PAR>

etc.

<SEC>

<SEC color-blue>

Section 2 content . . .

etc.

<SEC>

</MYDOC>

The corresponding example query expressions are:

“<SEC>(1) WHERE (COLOR=“BLUE”) UNDER <MYDOC>”

which fetches the first section whose color attribute is blue and whichis located under MYDOC . . . and

“<PAR>(2) 2 LEVELS UNDER <MYDOC>”

which fetches the second paragraph, which must be exactly two levelsunder MYDOC.

Therefore, in a preferred server side embodiment, the server does nothave to depend on XML DTDs with the preferred query and transformativeengine in order to present information to a user either in an HTML, XMLor other markup format.

In such a preferred embodiment, the XML query and transformative engineis located on the server to perform server-side tranformations. The XMLand query engine allows XML/XSL-enabled browsers to access the XMLdocuments on the server, whereas those browsers not enabled with XMLwill have the XML documents on the server transformed into apresentation format acceptable by the browser.

This is a unique approach, which allows a Web site user to have controlof the content through their queries, and based on the user's browserand client computer. This server side embodiment therefore allows foraccess to XML documents for many of the web browsers on the market.

Again, referring back to FIG. 4, which depicts the potential treeordering of an XML document. In this tree, each leaf containspresentable material. Each individual leaf is defined as a child of acertain number of branches. These branches are labeled as tags. Thetitle for the play Hamlet would be a leaf. The Hamlet leaf would bechild of the “Title” branch of the “Play” branch. Therefore, a userrequesting a search for the title of the play [<title> under <play>]would receive the term Hamlet in node 408 and would not receive the termPrologue from node 412. The convenience of XML is that it is able toallow a user to define a number of its own tags and therefore categorizeleafs with a greater level of detail.

The implementation of XML documents on a Web site does lead to a numberof potential problems. With HTML as the primary language of use on Websites and with a majority of web browsers, many users with such browserswill not be able to access information coded in XML.

In order to allow such access by HTML based web browsers, atransformative sequence is integrated with the query engine so thatbased on the web browser used to access the Web site, a certaintransformative sequence will be implemented. The transformative sequencewill then access a set of XSL transformative rules that will establishthe display for the XML information into the necessary format.

It should be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the specificembodiments disclosed above may be readily utilized as a basis formodifying or designing other methods for carrying out the same purposesof the present invention. It should also be realized by those skilled inthe art that such equivalent constructions do not depart from the spiritand scope of the invention as set forth in the appended claims.

We claim:
 1. A method of processing a query for a textual document in atagged-based language comprising: providing an abstract machine forsearching a tree representation of the document, wherein: the abstractmachine has an instruction set having an ability to produce at least aportion of results; the tree representation has levels; and all nodes ata same level have a same code; compiling a query in a language intoinstructions for the abstract engine; running the instructions on theabstract machine, wherein running is performed on the treerepresentation; and receiving the at least a portion of results from theinstructions that have been run.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereinrunning the instructions is performed on a first portion of an itemselected from a group consisting of a memory and a database.
 3. Themethod of claim 2, further comprising running the instructions on asecond portion of the item, wherein this act is performed afterreceiving the at least a portion of results.
 4. The method of claim 1,wherein the tree structure includes child nodes, wherein each child nodeis a descendant from only one parent node.
 5. The method of claim 1,further comprising: obtaining a code for a particular node, wherein thecode has been assigned by: determining a subtree depth for theparticular node within the tree representation; determining aparent-child relationship for the particular node and for each node, ifany, within the tree representation that lies between the particularnode and a root node; and determining a code for the particular node,wherein: if the subtree depth of the particular node is less than two,the code for the particular node is a code for its closest parent nodehaving a subtree depth of at least two; and if the subtree depth of theparticular node is at least two, the code for the particular node isselected such that when bitwise binary ANDed with a code of a parentnode yields the code of the parent node, wherein the codes for theparticular node and the parent node are different from each other; andusing the code as part of the query.
 6. The method of claim 5, whereinthe subtree depth of the particular node is less than two.
 7. The methodof claim 5, wherein the subtree depth of the particular node is leasttwo.
 8. A computer program product for performing a method of processinga query for a textual document in a tagged-based language, the methodcomprising: providing an abstract machine for searching a treerepresentation of the document, wherein: the abstract machine has aninstruction set having an ability to produce at least a portion ofresults; the tree representation has levels; and all nodes at a samelevel have a same code; compiling a query in a language intoinstructions for the abstract engine; running the instructions on theabstract machine, wherein running is performed on the treerepresentation; and receiving the at least a portion of results from theinstructions that have been run.
 9. The computer program product ofclaim 8, wherein running the instructions is performed on a firstportion of an item selected from a group consisting of a memory and adatabase.
 10. The computer program product of claim 9, wherein themethod further comprises running the instructions on a second portion ofthe item, wherein this act is performed after receiving the at least aportion of results.
 11. The computer program product of claim 8, whereinthe tree structure includes child nodes, wherein each child node is adescendant from only one parent node.
 12. The computer program productof claim 8, wherein the method further comprises: obtaining a code for aparticular node, wherein the code has been assigned by: determining asubtree depth for the particular node within the tree representation;determining parent-child relationships for the particular node and foreach node, if any, within the tree representation that lies between theparticular node and a root node; and using a code for the particularnode; wherein if the subtree depth of the particular node is less thantwo, the code for the particular node is a code for its closest parentnode having a subtree depth of at least two; and if the subtree depth ofthe particular node is at least two, the code for the particular node isselected such that when bitwise binary ANDed with a code of a parentnode yields the code of the parent node, wherein the codes for theparticular node and the parent node are different from each other; andusing the code as part of the query.
 13. The computer program product ofclaim 12, wherein the subtree of the particular node is less than two.14. The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the subtree of theparticular node is at least two.